The failings of the DPRK are not all external. Remember for the 60s 70s and part of the 80s the North was the Economic Tiger of Korea.
But as the South rose the North Declined due to failed reforms, the collapse of the USSR, and a already overburdened agriculture and distribution system burdaned witb obsolete technologies. Compouded by a series if natural disasters and a internally failed state dedicated to investing in military weapons as opposed to economic development.

Claiming the Embargo is the cause is saying that the added weight of the furniture was the cause of the collapse of the floor and not the shotty building and severe termite infestation undermining the whole thing

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The failings of the DPRK are not all external. Remember for the 60s 70s and part of the 80s the North was the Economic Tiger of Korea.
But as the South rose the North Declined due to failed reforms, the collapse of the USSR, and a already overburdened agriculture and distribution system burdaned witb obsolete technologies. Compouded by a series if natural disasters and a internally failed state dedicated to investing in military weapons as opposed to economic development.

Claiming the Embargo is the cause is saying that the added weight of the furniture was the cause of the collapse of the floor and not the shotty building and severe termite infestation undermining the whole thing

I do not know the specifics. But I know a little more about the Cuban case. So the problems might be similar. i.e. the USSR basically provided them with oil. Once the USSR collapsed and all that oil stopped flowing then the Cuban economy just crashed down. Also, South Korea basically became an electronics and semiconductor heavyweight thanks to companies like Samsung. A country like North Korea could never ride that wave since most of that technology was blocked from them.

Also, to a large degree, I think the problem was that the centralized planning model developed in the Soviet Union at one point stopped working. I remember listening and reading about things about the economy of the USSR. They basically treated oil as if it was worth less than water. The supply chain sometimes was totally lopsided and did not take transportation costs into account. As their oil fields depleted and they did not have access to modern drilling technology the planned system collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.

It is much harder for something like that to happen in modern Russia because it has a functioning market economy even if it the government controls some strategic sectors. However North Korea never implemented a market economy and the proposed industrial trade zones never went too far.

Of course, some people simply laughed the Norks map out of hand. But people who knew better back then said it was possible.
The KN-15 uses more dense hypergolic fuel and has a much more advanced engine than previous North Korean missiles. Which means the KN-15 is a road mobile ICBM which can be quickly erected and launched from concealed fixed stands.

If you want to know why it is more dense, they used to use RFNA and now they use UDMH.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsymmetrical_dimethylhydrazine
UDMH is also way more stable. It does not decay as easily inside a container.
So you can preload the fuel in the rocket and keep it inside the canister for years even.

The rocket engines allegedly use staged combustion and work at increased chamber pressures compared with prior North Korean rockets. That further increases Isp ie the miles per gallon of the rocket.

The only question is how reliable the rocket is, and how well does the reentry warhead work.
But it can be way less complicated than some people assume. For example the Chinese allegedly used simple wood, which ablated with reentry heat, as the warhead heat shield. Sometimes the simplest solutions are best.

Plus the North Koreans have fusion bombs. The latest tests were way too powerful to be a regular fission device. This means the bomb is up to 1000x times more powerful than if it was a fission device. So you basically can miniaturize it and still do a large detonation blast.

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There is telemetry of the launch. You can bet the Russian and Chinese OTH radars caught it and the Japanese are also used to tracking North Korean missiles. Typically with their naval radars. By the trajectory of the missile you can determine the characteristics in terms of range. They basically did a launch in a shallow trajectory closer to the ground, which, if you used a lobbed trajectory with the same energy would mean it could hit the CONUS. This was known the week that video was shown up. There is no reason to disbelieve the North Koreans on this one. It wasn't just a parade mockup this time.

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There is telemetry of the launch. You can bet the Russian and Chinese OTH radars caught it and the Japanese are also used to tracking North Korean missiles. Typically with their naval radars. By the trajectory of the missile you can determine the characteristics in terms of range. They basically did a launch in a shallow trajectory closer to the ground, which, if you used a lobbed trajectory with the same energy would mean it could hit the CONUS. This was known the week that video was shown up. There is no reason to disbelieve the North Koreans on this one. It wasn't just a parade mockup this time.

Heck they even showed photos of the engine test on the test stand.

There is no disagreement about is, problem is we don't know the mass of the warhead.

The capitol and pentagon in the USA know it,I am sure they followed the RV with X band radars, that showing the cross section and the speed of descent , from that it is trivial to calculate the characteristic of missile, but they do not to share this information with the electorate, probably due to internal political reasons.

The size of nuclear test explosions , the missile characteristic showing that they could posses this capability, but without confirmation from a government with deep knowledge about the bomb ( like Russia or USA ) we can not be sure about that if it is a real capability, or something that resemble a real capability.

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North Korea's test launch of a KN-06 surface-to-air missile into the West Sea early this month appears to have been successful, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said at a hearing by the National Assembly's Defense Committee on Monday.

.....
It is similar to the Russian S-300, which is used to shoot down other missiles, and seems to be based on technology that North Korea secretly obtained from China, Russia and other countries. Showing its evolution from the S-300, which had a range of between 75 km and 90 km, the KN-06 is apparently capable of hitting targets up to 150 km away. Each launcher truck can hold two to three missiles.

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What a surprise: Drawn from a propaganda video about Kim Il Sung, there is a brief glimpse on the background showing a MiG-23 and a Su-7 (!!!) The recording date is not exactly verifiable, but it seems to be from the late 80s - early 90s, but before 1994.

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HI Sutton, after viewing the few images, found some features that led him to think that it was derived from the Romeo class, although there are no images of the upper part of the submarine, the author of the article hypothesizes the presence of an enlarged sail capable of hosting launchers for the KN-11 ballistic missile

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